1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data storage and, more particularly, to systems and methods for storing data in a fault-tolerant and distributed manner.
2. Description of Related Art
In existing file systems, large collections of data are usually organized as files on disks. When the number of files becomes large, the files may be distributed over multiple file servers. Clients access the files by requesting file services from one or more of the file servers.
Existing file systems are limited in many respects. For example, the file systems do not scale well. As the number of files grows, it becomes necessary to add new file servers and redistribute the current distribution of the files. This can be a time-consuming process, which sometimes requires human operator intervention. Also, the file systems do not handle failures well. Oftentimes, file servers or disks fail or data becomes corrupt. This may cause certain files to become unavailable.
Accordingly, there is a need for a distributed file system that delivers good scalable aggregate performance and continued operation in the event of failures.